It stormed like never before...

As the transfer comes to a close, i must say it was the fastest transfer of the whole mission. I am not even exactly sure why but it FLEW by. 

It stromed like never before last night. In just seconds it started, lightening every 3 seconds and pouring rain. Aaaaand with our windows open we recieved a bit of that rain in the house. I forgot to mention i think that i had a comp a while ago from Peru that had NEVER seen lightening in his entire life..and was very suprised to see flashing lights in the sky. 

I saw a nun this morning, for the first time in mexico.

We got to play soccer again in the night for the first time in a while.

A family of 5 that we teach came to church for the first time. Sadly, in the ward we start with about 15 people, including the bishop(without his consoulers) and us with our investigators. Everyone arrives so late its embaressing for me with our investigators to sing the opening hymn with less than 20 people. Also this less active woman came to church that we visited. I am so confused with her because she talks about the church sarcastically and never really shows a desire to go..never told us she was going to come..and didnt come until like 3 weeks later. Hopefully she continues.

And Later..the transfers. I will be leaving The Ward Florida to go to a ward named Reynosa. It is like 40 minutes away which is awesome because i didnt want to leave Reynosa the city. Everything happens here. The good news is i will be training a newly an elder that arrived today, the other news and i say news is because i dont know if it is good or bad. We will be opening an area, which basically means you start with no investigators which isnt a bad thing i like contacting and finding and working from scratch i think. But yeah its mixed emotions because i have been in this ward for well 6 months its been my home for so long..its tough to say goodbye but i am ready to meet new people and have new experiences.

I know nothing right now about the new comp..i havent had any really, really tough companions so its probably about my turn. I have heard good things about the zone there, but i will know more the next week.

Until then, take care and enjoy the week.

Elder Smith

I love clouds.

What a great week we had! We had some great success in finding some new people that accepted us these past few weeks. This one little part in a colony here we contacted that i dont think has ever been contacted before..we found someone thats been praying to God to send someone to help her..annnd she wants to be baptized immedietly. She has a few challenges though..family things and stuff shes gotta leave behind but we have faith.

And then later was General Conference. I hope to enjoy it as much as i did this weekend for the rest of my life. Never before have i wanted MORE of conference when it ended it was espicially powerful. I learned so much and recognized a lot of things i need to improve/change. I invite anyone that missed a session to go to https://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2015/04?lang=eng and watch them all. I cant think of one that didnt intrigue me.

On that note i also invite all to share http://www.mormon.org/easter to family and friends on social media or through other means. Its a video similar to ``Because of Him.´´

Everything in the mission is going swell. I have a feeling with the transfers coming this week there might be a change for me..considering i have been here for 6 months haha. In the same ward at least. 

My companion from Lehi lives like 10 minutes away from my family. He tells me he has a huge box with mixed up star wars legos..and with all the instructions. I am trying to buy them from him while on the mission haha i tell him that is worth more to me than gold..the adventure of searching, finding and completing those things hahaha we have to meet up now after the mission for sure.

The weather has been geeting progressively hotter..but with clouds recently which is the best. I love clouds.

I had to negociate(spell check haha?) a contract for the rent on our house. The owners wanted more money. Basically i went to go search for other houses and when i talked to the owners about leaving..we settled on a more appropiate number;)

I have my health, support from my family and firends, my happiness, and my calling what more could i possibly want?

Take care all!

Elder Smith

Baptism of Marlegne

Well this friday was great. We had interchanges. And my former companion(my district leader now) came with me for a day. And well..my acual companion(american from utah) is young. He didnt really get trained and needs help to learn the lessons. Not really my strength right now haha but im trying.

Anyway so Elder Ramirez(formar comp) had been teaching Marlegne for a month of two when he was here. But when she passed the interview tuesday we decided that friday we would be together to have a lesson with her and put a date...for the following day(saturday). She has been resistent to quick baptism..but we had scriptures, we had the Spirit, and it was just awesome when she finally said yes. So we had the baptism Saturday. Elder Ramirez, who is a really good friend now actually, hasnt had the chance to phsically baptize someone in his year here. And Marlegene said she wouldnt decide and that we should flip a coin haha. But, knowing that Elder Ramirez wanted to do it, we agreed to do the coin flip later in our house(without marlegne) and well, no coin was flipped haha i felt that was a little wrong. Elder Ramirez did ordinance, and it was an awesome moment.
Annnnd then Sunday. She goes up to get confirmed, the bishop says something to her and then points to me and tells me to come. So i gave the gift of the Holy Ghost for the first time which was a really, really cool experience.
Other investigators...sufficeth to say we are searching

. We can now touch doors haha which is grand.

Cambios! Transfers!

What a 2 months. Elder Ramirez has been really interesting. I have never laughed so much and so genuinely in a transfer. But alone with him for 2 months has also taught me a lot of things. For one spanish haha. And other things like patience, and hard work things like that.

My new companion arrives tuesday, named elder Warren and he has less time than me, but not in his training(first 3 months) so its gonna be reeeeeal interesting i think. Two gringos hahaha im only slightly terrified.

We have some seriously cool members in our area that i have some to know. The ones that love us are usually returned missionaries. And they have so much success and potential at the same time sometimes i want to skip to that part of my lie haha. But i wouldn’t want to miss out on these experiences.

Welp, 6 months. 3 more of those. It feels like a blink and an eternity at the same time. I can picture myself in my room, or in the living room of a friends house surrounded by brothers. Or in a dorm playing FIFA with roomates. But memories in the MTC or my old area seem like a long time ago. Haha its best to just focus on the task at hand.

The food here is still pretty awesome. Just when they make hotdogs my heart sinks.

Love ya all, thanks for the prayers!

Elder Smith

Trying week with local challenges but the stress of the language is coming along.

This week was without doubt the worst week work-wise in my entire mission. And its possible this week could be worse. Heres why:

There are two different cartels in these parts of mexcio. And right now the cartel that doesnt have Reynosa..wants reynosa so they are moving up from monterey, to fight. But this is the dumb part. All this is happening in like downtown Reynosa hours from our zone. But our leaders cancelled work for one day last week(we have to stay in our house) and every other day we have to return to house by 5:00. Which is awful because all our investogators get home from work..all our good appts happen after 5. ALSO we arent allowed to contact..touch doors or talk or meet with people we dont know. We had a whopping 5 lessons this last week. And well these rules will probably apply this week which is going to be rough. Investigators decompose(not sure if that word works) when dont have lessons with them. 

The bright light of the week was we had 2 investigators at church. One was her first time..she is awesoeme she could get baptized muy pronto. The other was her third time.. and we put a date for baptism this friday. Luckily for us..she has an awesome sister that helped us calm her concerns about a baptism so soon. Her sister is an investigator..she just has a husband that doesnt want to legally get married...like 60% of the men in this country. Ugh.

But if everything goes well this week should be number two for febuary..which was our goal. Then its off to prepare for march!

The challenge right now is finding people to teach and then being able to teach them..without contacting or working in the evenings.

The cold is officially gone and it is hot. The summer is going to hot her.

Oh and soccer got cancelled tonight so we are all really upset with that.

I learned there are like 11 temples in mexico this week.

The zone if doing great I believe. Something like 15 baptisms we are supposed to have by the end. For a month with 4 sundays I'm really proud of everyone.
The stress of spanish isn't really there any more. That doesn't mean I don't have a long way to go because I do trust me. But having the ability to communicate just makes life so much more enjoyable on the mission. There are so many things I want to learn now, but I can't read books fast in spanish, and reading them in english simply hurts me in my progression with the language.
The new elder in our district is from the dominican republic..and he is interesting haha.  For 2 weeks he's got no lack of confidence. And he LOVES to talk, always. And we eat with him and his companion every day and it is the greatest because he always talks to the members the whole time so we get to just relax and chill the three of us. Oh the food..still is so awesome. In this area I haven't had one bad meal. The truth is I haven't even had one average meal..the people here are so good to us. I am gonna miss having my food prepared for me haha.

***THIS PART FOR EVERYONE***

Disclaimer: It has come to my attention that some type of trailer has come out for Star Wars episode VII. I am going to do something that I have never done with this movie. I am not going to know anything, the trailers, the information, the actors nothing. I predict that with a complete suprise and with everything being new it will be an unforgetable movie experience. 

That being said, I don't get home  for 19 months. And to be clear I do not want to know ONE THING. If it was good..if it was bad..if it has a twist..don't wanna know it. Nothing.

If you decide to tell me something, or forget, or try to be funny....You will receive forgiveness because I have too. But you will be dead to me. Consider yourself warned

First Baptism In This Area - Still no bandwidth to send photos... maybe next week.

Awww what a week. Friday was great..our first baptism(and i believe the first in this area) and it was hilarious. Because this boy is just a little a different. He doesnt talk much and is super reserved. And we told him the water would be warm..buuuuut the boiler here like usual didnt work and the people with callings to fill the font don't really do it haha sooo we had to do it in really really cold water. And well there was a member family who was baptizing their daughter before our baptism. But we taught the little girl and the father needed us to baptize her.  So my companion gets in there with her and she does not want to go under. But they try anyway and she doesnt go all the way and gets water up her nose and starts to cry and scream and well they postponed her baptism.  And well our poor boy sees all of this and we just had to coax and coax and finally got him in the water.  And as soon as he came out..he ran out of that font hahaha..ohhh was so proud of him..and the experience because I did not want to postpone that baptism at ALL.

And well as for our other investigators that said they were coming to church..not ONE came and that stinks.  But we are looking to future and looking for more people, and working with the ones that we have that are good. 

As a representative of Jesus Christ I get to do a lot of things I haven't ever done.  One of those things is that pretty much all sensitive and personal information and problems we know.  And its just cool to know more..so that we can more effectively help people.  Like we ask people if they have problems with commandments or things like that..and I dont know we just are able to help people more in this position we are in.

We are still using potatoes for computers so I can't send pictures..but I have them and want to send them.  Next week hopefully. 

Oh! I have a special suprise..my secret recipe for my breakfast oatmeal every morning.

Oats(how much to put..depends on how good will the food be at lunch today)

Brown sugar(from an excompanion)

Honey(same companion)

Spoonful of peanut butter(crunchy for texture)

Water with the oats.. later milk and all the other stuff.

Ohh baby I get hungry just thinking about that breakfest!;)

Hmmm well everything is tranquilo here for the most part.  Hope everything is great in your homes... I love you all! I know a lot of missionaries send scriptures in their emails... I'm just gonna challenge you to read the Book of Mormon. It is one of the best things you can do daily. 

Maybe ill share a piece of doctrine new that I learn every week...

This week: The telestial kingdom isn't literally Hell..but it will be a personal Hell for man because he understands that there is so much glory and potential that he didn't achieve and never will be able too. 

With that..I invite you to REPENT!!!

Haha I love missionary humor..it's stuff like that. Like our leaders when we make a tiny error like forget something say ``Elder...we invite you to return to your home`` hhahaha ahhh its actually really funny maybe you just have to be here. buuuut you are all great people..stay on the safe path of the gospel of Jesus Christ and we won't have to worry about that^

Spanish is still a process haha but i'm loving it!  Love you all!

Elder Smith

No Pics... Just fruit...

Well this week wasnt too exciting..but i didnt write last week so maybe i can remeber stuff from then too. Well we had 4 investigators in church two sundays ago which was awesome. Then none of them were able to go because of family travels or work this past Sunday. We did have one investigator this sunday though. A 9 year old child. One of the ways we get baptisms is through less actives that have children that are over the age of 8. What we do is teach the family and try to reactivate them at the same time as we try to baptize the children. The child's parents are great people, they are both in wheelchairs and it is difficult to get them to church but we have his baptism planned for this friday. Only complication could be work for the mom but we will do it if it is in anyway possible. 

Other good investigators include these two sisters that live together. One has a husband. But the biggest challenge in mexico is getting people to get married. Because marriage(and divorce) are super expensive to do here so people dont do it even though they love each other. They just dont have the money so we have to scrounge up the money from the ward funds AND convince the investigators to help pay for it. It is super fun yeah haha, so one of the sisters needs to get married, the other needs to stop smoking. We have invited them to do both, we will see this week what happens...

Hmmm what more well my parents sent me a SWEET package that had clif bars galore. Also there is this one talk they sent by JR Holland entitled Safety for the Soul I believe. If you don't remember it or havent read it...go find it. He planchs  outta Book of Mormon haters. Planchs.. planchar is a word that means ´´grill´´ or to ´´burn´´ in english missionaries here use it a lot. Anyway he just says it all with such force it is great.

This week was espcially great in the fruit department. People gave me..many oranges and apples, a grapefruit, and a Cocoanut! You don't miss fruit til you don't have it. And I mean its way better here too sooo, I have pictures of the cocoanut it was pretty delicious, and better with lime supposedly.

My hair is super long but I can't find the time or the people to cut it haha.

Shoutout to my sister Kristi and brother inlaw michael AND the newest member of our family her baby girl Lucille Jane McCain. You won the terrenal-lottery Lucy, congrats;)

Thats all for this week really. Hope all is well and everyone is warm.

Elder Smith